


Anything

by Ladycat



Category: Angel: the Series
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Episode: s05e22 Not Fade Away, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-11 23:58:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1179484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Like cockroaches, the refuse that lay underfoot, they would continue on because that was their burden and theirs alone to shoulder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anything

The rain came down like little shards of ice, tearing into him even as it sluiced off the blood. His body shuddered each time he sucked in air he knew he didn’t need, but grew tight in the chest and faint without.

“Ready?” Angel didn’t look any better as he eyed the front of the alleyway, where energies thicker than molasses and dark enough to make his own black heart shrivel amassed. Angel’s eyes glittered in the night, full of an unholy light that Spike recognized easily—obsession. A dying, suicidal obsession that _this_ work. Not that it be enough, but Angel knew that would never be the case, as well as Spike knew it. No, Angel wanted this, the final fight of teeth and blood and energy pumping all that was _Angel_ into the thickening night air.

Spike silently nodded. It was him who’d been called the obsessive one over the decades. He worse his emotions like hats, shifting between bowler to feathered to cap to more without blinking an eyes. But his obsessions were just that: fashion accessories, a way for him to ignore what lay inside him to concentrate on what people saw instead. Oh, he meant each and every one of his choices. He felt deeply, more deeply than Angel did, and his needs and desires always reflected that.

But it was Angel who took obsession down to the depths of insanity. Angel, who had meticulously used his obsession with art to bring about the destruction of whole cities, entire families—Drusilla’s madness. Spike danced wherever the mood took him. Angel _forced_ reality to conform to his desires.

This time was no different. Angel wanted a final battle, so this was what he’d brought about. Spike knew there’d be no returning from this, no sunny days the mythic promise of shanshu offered. Standing here, and now, with Angel vibrating with his need to leap forward, wasn’t about what they were to be gifted with afterwards. It was about _now_. Striking a blow that wouldn’t do much more than temporarily annoy because that final blow was all they could do. Everything had been botched and twisted, internal mirrors shattered into twisted fragments as their outsides became the things they hated: 

Gunn, a manipulative, facile lawyer who cared more about the ends instead of the means.

Wesley, a bitter man who required light to find the path, instead of being someone else’s light and strength.

Fred, punished for her desire to learn, the sweetness and innocence that a God-kind had had to destroy, since others had been unable to.

Lorne, like Wesley, twisted into a mockery of his original intent, no longer providing guidance and levity but lost in his own self-hate.

Spike didn’t bother listing himself or Angel because he knew their own destruction had come long before this point. He knew, too, that _they_ would survive in one way or another. Like cockroaches, the refuse that lay underfoot, they would continue on because that was their burden and theirs alone to shoulder.

But maybe, even in the depths of Angel’s obsession and Spike’s inability to contain it, they could offer their friends peace. Purpose. Absolution.

And that, Spike knew, was worth _anything_.


End file.
